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Deeplinks Blog posts about PATRIOT Act

Deep in the darkest heart of your servers, there live files known as logs. They contain all manner of intensely revealing information about people who use your systems. Web server logs might show which URLs somebody has visited, for how long, and what they wrote on an anonymous message board. Email server logs can even contain information about who is sending email to whom.

The truly scary thing is that many Online Service Providers (OSPs) don't realize they're collecting all this personal data in their logs. Or, if they do know, they have no policy in place to protect the privacy of the people whose online activities they've routinely been logging.

Responding to growing public and congressional criticism of the USA PATRIOT Act, the Department of Justice this week released a new report to Congress singing its praises.

As other commentators have already pointed out, the DoJ report, entitled "Report from the Field: The USA PATRIOT Act at Work," contains precious little new or meaningful information. Instead, it functions primarily as a public relations vehicle, parroting the DoJ's well-worn party line about the benefits of the Act while failing to address specific and legitimate concerns about how PATRIOT is being used or whether the new investigative powers it grants are actually necessary for fighting terrorism.

In a victory for the First Amendment rights of Internet users, jurors returned a verdict today acquitting University of Idaho graduate student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen of terrorism charges. Hussayen had been charged in federal court with providing "material support" to terrorists in the form of "expert advice and assistance," based on his activities as webmaster for a number of websites and message boards serving Muslims. This same law, which was expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act, has already been found unconstitutional by one federal court.

Eric Grimm has a grim tale indeed over @ Dave Farber's IP list, describing in frightening, first-hand detail the over-reach that the USA PATRIOT Act currently enables. As Grimm points out, the law can serve as the ultimate blank check for the government -- due to "don't ask, don't tell"-style provisions, federal officials are able to use unprecedented powers with near-impunity.

A group of influential Republican senators have introduced a bill to make permanent the civil liberties-corroding provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act that were sold to the public -- and to Congress -- as temporary measures. These provisions are among the most controversial in the Act, and for good reason: they represent an extraordinary assault upon our most basic rights as U.S. citizens. The fact that they expire is one of the only checks on this assault.